A Day In The Life Of Cable dog

By Guest Blogger Sammy

My name is Sammy-I also go by Sam. I am a 5 year old Border Collie mix. I was rescued from a dumpster in Yakima by an organization called Lil’ Waif Puppy Rescue. I came to the rescue with something they called “failure to thrive”. They were really nice to me though; I got snuggled in a rocking chair a lot and got better. I used to stand in my water dish all the time and the nice lady who rescued me made sure I was adopted into a home that would involve water. Sure enough I got my own pond now and lots of friendly neighbor dogs that come over to play.

My favorite neighbor is a Chihuahua named Harley, he doesn’t seem to notice how much bigger I am than him. One of my other best friends is a Schnauzer named Zeke-I met him when we were both really young and I taught him to climb stairs. I also live with 3 cats-but they aren’t much fun to play with, in fact they are all kinda crabby.

I have a pretty easy life now-but had a really rough start. It was even a little rough when I got adopted to my forever home. My potty training coincided with my owners purchasing a Roomba. I tried really hard to hold it-but had an accident. My owners didn’t notice right away and one of them decided to start the Roomba and poop got dragged all over the house. They talk about it now like it’s a really funny story-but they didn’t think it was funny when it happened!

Most days I wake up around 7AM but I don’t generally get up to stretch until I hear someone getting into the shower. Then I stretch a bit and wonder on downstairs to see if any food magically appeared in my dish overnight. Then outside for a potty and squirrel check-I LOVE chasing the squirrels.

I am always excited to get in the car and go to work. I run into the warehouse and greet all the people there. I run up and down the aisles of the warehouse until I find each and everyone. If anyone is missing I find it very worrisome. There are so many aisles full of things like HDMI cables and patch cables-I don’t know what they are used for but they must be pretty important ‘cause we have a lot of them. One day a long time ago when our warehouse was in Kent Washington, I caught a rat. I made company history!

Then I go up to the business office and have to greet everyone there. I get to go for a walk at lunch and then I mostly sleep until it’s time to go home. If you want to see a picture of me visit our facebook page group. Until next time happy tails to you.

Cisco WebEx on 24

I admit it-I am a 24 junkie and I voted for Jack Bauer for President last November. 24 is fast paced, patriotic and uses a lot of really cool technology that the average Joe doesn’t know exists let alone understands. To check out a scene from last night’s 24 click here. Last night the plugs for Cisco were kind of obscene-but it did get me interested in the technology. WebEx provides technology for everything from electronic signatures to web meeting and video conferencing capabilities; Cisco calls them virtual collaboration tools.  BTW Connectzone.com sells Cisco cables if you are in need of one.

 

Product Placement 101

Am I the only person who noticed Cisco product placement in last night’s episode? I suspect not. But how many of you noticed Sprint cell phones, government agents only driving Ford SUVs and all the computers being Macs? Well it makes sense since darn near everyone has a DVR and skips commercials. I guess old dogs can learn new tricks.

 

Starkwood vs. Blackwater hey that’s downright scary. If you have a 2 monitor set up open both links and read side by side. Maybe that speaks to Kiefer Sutherland’s politics.

 

Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease also scary although I don’t know enough about genetically engineering it to accelerate. I hope infecting Jack with a relative of Mad Cow Disease doesn’t spell curtains-maybe Juma also genetically engineered an antidote although I sure hope 24 isn’t going to try to jump the shark!

 

 

 

Cable Geek

Cable Geek is who most of our established customer’s know as LanceW@connectzone.com . Lance has been on our team for about a million years.

In short Lance is our company’s and our customer’s safe sales harbor in stormy seas.  Yep-the rest of us could be wiped out with the stomach flu or a snow storm and Lance is still gonna be there holding down the fort. He has an amazing ability to find a funny story just when you need it, or find the silver lining in a dark cloud.

He is quite inquisitive and has a wide variety of interest. Cable Geek is unbelievably loyal and most important to our customers, honest and ethical.

Jemma

That’s me, it’s really kind of more of a personality type than a name. My business card says my title is “Mission Control” that’s an upgrade from what my title used to be which was “does everything that no one else knows how to do or is unwilling to do”. Remember the movie Apollo 13? Ed Harris portrayed Gene Kranz as NASA Flight Director?  He makes a couple really strong statements that describe what I do all day. The first is “Failure is not an option”. The second is as Apollo 13 is re-entering the atmosphere with everyone at NASA predicting disaster and Ed Harris puts on his white vest and says “Gentlemen, I believe this is going to be our finest hour”. I have been known to drag salespeople kicking and screaming into new software and routines. I am the one that pushes people of their comfort zone cliff. I am the one who makes sure accounting is running smoothly. I make sure my employees are happy because they are my peeps and without them Connectzone fails (as mentioned earlier “Failure is not an option”). Lastly, I write the blog that makes the whole world sing (insert Barry Manillo tune here)

Jemma answers to the name Shelly (shelly@connectzone.com) but everyone who knows me really well knows that alter ego Bad Kitty is really in charge. Connectzone is also on facebook and you can check us out there.

Aaron

Is the most recent addition to the www.connectzone.com team. Since he is kind of new-I don’t know him inside and out like I do the rest of the crew. Here is what I do know: he has got to be one of the most cheerful employees I have ever had, surely he most have bad days like the rest of us-but it never shows-not even a little bit, he is willing to do any task assigned and I mean anything. Aaron will go help on a cabling install, he will crop photos for our website, he is always on time and extraordinarily polite and that quality is really hard to find in the “X” generation.

Now I will tell you a secret. Aaron is a type A perfectionist about everything. I feel bad for him; being an obsessive compulsive perfectionist myself I know it is really burdensome. As his employer on the other hand it works out really well for me.

Cable Stud

One of the unique things Connectzone.com can offer that many of our competitors can’t is custom cables. We make them fast, we make them to spec, we guarantee them and Cable Stud (known as Ed to his Mother) oversees the whole process. If it isn’t built right-it doesn’t get past him. Period.

Ed and his co-workers also manage our warehouse stock and believe me when I tell ya-they know if anything is out of place. As a matter of fact our entire warehouse crew is very intolerant of disorder. Speaking of which you should see how clean and polished they keep their cars!

If you meet him, you can call him Cable Stud or Ed but if you call him Edward-trust me he won’t answer to it. edv@connectzone.com. Lastly-in the event you want to know what we look like in real life visit our company facebook page Connectzone. If you do, don’t ask me who “Cable Chimp” it’s a secret.

PZ

PZ is another one of our amazing employees. Remember in the networking blog entry I told you about hidden skill sets? Well here is an example of what I was talking about; this guy can take amazing pictures of little teeny tiny connectors with a very complicated digital camera so we can display them on our website. He and some other employees made videos of how assemble our new line of data cabinets at www.connectzone.com . I am told by other employees he knows how to write html code (whatever that is).

His formal job is as our incoming and outgoing transport guru and he does a superior job. He is astonishingly detailed-I can ask him for a copy of a signed packing slip for will call from 3 years ago and he knows right where it is. He seemed pretty shy when he first came to work with us but overtime has revealed a really fun personality and is a loyal, dedicated employee.

If you want to call him-you will have to ask for Prince that’s his alter ego. princet@connectzone.com

Dann the Cable Man

He has been in the Wire & Cable industry since he was 14 years old running an old Eubanks automated wire stripping machine for his father, in his grandfathers garage; getting paid $0.50 for every 5,000 wires he stripped. The job was easier than is sounds as he basically sat & watched the machine in case there was a problem. That was in 1976 a lot has changed in the industry since then.

 

Dann is our fearless leader here at Connectzone.com. He is also the idea and corporate direction guy. And he knows a little bit about cabling and connectivity. danno@connectzone.com

 

Who is Jemma Jr.?

You would spot her instantly in our office. Behind every successful leader-there is a Jemma sweeping up the consequences of genius. Our office has two Jemma’s. I am Jemma one-not because I am better than Jemma Jr. but because I was here first and I coined the name. It came out of a movie called “A Good Year”. It’s a great movie starring Russell Crowe and has something for men and women-so boys don’t be afraid to rent it because it’s a chick flick. If you have seen the movie-you will understand the meaning of being a Jemma.

A Jemma is essential to every executive and if you don’t have one-I recommend you get one and do it with some urgency! You see Jemma is the office Jedhi Master she is also a Japanese Ninja combined with Master Po and a couple of encyclopedias. If Jemma were a race car she would have the capacity to travel at the speed of sound, in all wheel drive and have a shift on the fly feature.

Ever been on a business trip and lost your reservation code? Don’t worry Jemma has it. What about the password for your Swiss bank account? Jemma has all your passwords, logons and bank account numbers memorized. Want to build a website today? Jemma knows how. Jemma also knows all your family’s birthdates and your wife’s or husband’s favorite color-even if she has never met any of them.

Jemma can get rid of a vendor stalking you and organize your dry cleaning pick up at the same time she is building your website. Lock yourself out of your office did you? Hope you didn’t leave your cell phone in there cause you are going to have to call Jemma. Lost in San Francisco in a rental car-not to worry, Jemma installed GPS on your cell and can pull up your location on line and give you directions from her cell phone or PC.

Jemma has more patience and tolerance for executive eccentricities than Gandhi and as driven and self directed as Donald Trump. See what I mean? If you don’t have one-you better get one-just don’t try to steal ours.

If you want to meet Jemma Jr. you will have to ask for Ashley, that’s her alter ego. ashleyu@connectzone.com